[JMM] 28.2.1 A problem shared is a problem halved

[thepainted_lady]

[ooc: AU 'verse based on spin-off from Heroes graphic novels "Bloodlines, part 1 & 2" - Joseph not aimed at any particular journal. Samuel is offering_hope].

Eastern Europe, Christmas, 2008

Lydia stood in the shadows of the trailer, stunned. She couldn't have heard Joseph right, couldn't have. Surely she must have been distracted by the horror of what he described to Arnold, about Coyote Sands, and misheard what he asked the time traveler to do, yes? And if she hadn't been? If she had heard him correctly? Something inside her heart seemed to constrict tightly, a fluttering, aching feeling that made it hard to breathe. There was nothing she could do. Arnold was already gone, and if he did what Joseph had asked...her whole world would change.

But Christmas morning dawned and the world was still the same. Lydia watched Joseph with speculative eyes, watched his darting looks at Samuel, the worry around his eyes, and she finally dared ask where Arnold was, a picture of innocence. Joseph didn't answer, not really, just saying something about work the time traveler had to do, but later he came with Samuel to her trailer asking them to use their new found ability to work together and find Arnold.

Samuel's fingers were warm on her skin, the pierce of the needle quickly familiar, and she reached out for the lost family member a little desperately, even as she tried to hold on to the presence of the man next to her.

"Arnold's not missing in the past," Lydia said, looking back over her shoulder at Joseph. "He's right here, in the present day."

Even as old as he was, even with the tumor, it was possible Arnold could still travel, she thought, once they had him back home. Joseph's words rang in her ears, praising her and swearing her to secrecy about Emile Danko. Or, well, not secrecy, but just asking her not to tell Samuel. He wasn't going to send Arnold back again. He apparently wasn't that cruel to someone so frail--just to family. His intentions came through loud and clear as his hands curled around her hands.

Couldn't he see that fate had been on Samuel's side? That something greater than he was had stepped in to stop him murderous intent? He'd sent Arnold back to murder a baby in his crib. Her mind flashed to Amanda, to her lost baby, the one she ached for every day, so helpless against the world, and the thought of her idol doing something like that, and to someone she...her heart twisted.

This Danko person had killed Arnold's son. She'd just told Joseph that, and again he was planning to put his own blood in the line of fire.

For a while she sat in her trailer, robe wrapped tight around her, torn between loyalty to the man who had saved her and the growing feelings that had taken root so many years before and blossomed more each year. Her idol's feet were made of clay, apparently, and that hurt. And Samuel...had done nothing to deserve such a fate.

Mind made up, the bitter feeling of betrayal burning inside of her, she made her way across the space that separated her trailer from Samuel's and knocked lightly. He had the right to know what Joseph was planning, and to protect himself, and she'd do whatever it took to help him.

Comments

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

Part of her had been expecting it, from the depth of his horror, the way he flinched from her, but the words still came as a near physical blow, gut-wrenching in its horror as it washed over her and she bit back a little sob. She didn't pull away, though tears fell. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him, as if she could physically hold him together, or keep the pieces safe for him if he fell apart, to better put them back after. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head, even though her voice broke on her words.

"Oh, God...Samuel..." She tried, then, to feel Joseph, but he wasn't there, he was gone, and that emptiness welled. Betrayal or no, he was still the man she'd thought of as a father when she'd tossed off her own, and she could feel Samuel's pain rioting in him, blending with hers until the whole trailer seemed full of it, to her.

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He leaned into her reflexively, the need for comfort greater than his need to continue shying away from her. He didn't look at her, however, instead burying his head in her shoulder, his breathing erratic as if he were on the verge of tears himself.

"I'm sorry, Lydia. I'm so sorry."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

Lydia tightened her arms around him, rocking a little on instinct, trying to soothe even as she felt her own grief well and surge, running through her painfully.

"It's okay," she murmured, but that was a lie. She tried again. "It'll be all right. We'll find a way to make it okay." She didn't know how, though, not now, not yet. How could anything be okay, ever, after what Joseph had done? After what Samuel had done? She swallowed, feeling all the little broken pieces inside her shattering more. "We can't tell anyone. The family...they can't know. They won't understand...They...need Joseph to be what he was in their eyes, they can't feel his betrayal, too..."

It would shatter the family, and they all needed each other. "They need someone to lead them, Samuel, and Joseph to be their martyr, as much as we know different. We'll...think of something to tell them...". Her mind was racing. "That man from the government...the one he was going to give you to. We'll blame him. He killed Arnold's son. He would have hurt you. He's the enemy anyway."

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

In spite of the fact that he was shaking now, still ashamed, he looked up at her and shook his head. "Joseph -- he lied to me, Lydia. He lied to you. This whole thing -- It could have been avoided if he'd just said something. We can't lie to them, too. They need to know."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

Lydia looked at him doubtfully. His pain and hers were both swirling through her, and the thought of it ricocheting out through the whole family made her feel sick to her stomach. Part of her wanted to argue, but his words were morally sound, making her feel a wave of shame, and she glanced down. "You think they can handle it? Accept it?"

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He looked away again, taking a deep breath in through his nose and letting it out through his mouth in an effort to stop his stomach from rolling. It didn't help, and he shook his head both at the question and the near riot in his guts. "I don't know."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

She ran her fingers lightly over his cheek, then pulled away, standing and moving to look out the window, out at the family, merrily going on about their business. Rubes still were on the midway, a normal night flying around them it seemed, and yet everything had changed. "Sleep on it," she suggested after a few moments. "Or try. Don't make any decisions right now."

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He made a soft, near-hysterical noise at the idea, the sound almost a sob, though still no tears fell. He felt too hollow for them, too numb, and with Lydia no longer at his side, the stinging emptiness only grew. He wrapped his arms back around himself, closing his eyes again. "I can't say I'll be sleeping much tonight, but I'll -- I'll think on it. It's ... "

His train of thought evaporated in that instant and he didn't try and catch it, instead contenting himself to sitting there, shivering in silence, waiting for it to come back to him. And it did eventually, though not where it had left off a moment before. "What should we do about the body? He's just -- he's still out there, Lydia. In the fields."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

His pain tugged at her, calling her back to him, and yet she didn't know how to cross the distance--wasn't sure if she would help or make it worse or feed into his pain with her own. It was all a little overwhelming in her head. Still, he looked so lost, felt so lost, and the distance didn't help her find herself any better, that she moved back to him, settling beside him, there if he needed, wanted, her touch, but not pressing it on him.

His question resounded in her, bouncing around the hollow places, and brought tears to her eyes she didn't dare to shed, but she had to fight back the lump in her throat. To leave Joseph out there in the field, alone, all night...it didn't seem right. "...I don't know...we can't just leave him there alone..."

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He leaned into her a bit, still hesitant and raw, and shook his head. They couldn't just leave him, no, but he had no real desire to go out and drag his brother's corpse back, nor did he really want to leave that task to Lydia. "No, we can't. But he's -- I can't, Lydia. I can't go back there. And at the same time, I wouldn't wish the job of bringing him back on anyone else."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

Lydia closed her eyes, feeling a shudder deep inside her at the thought of it. "I can do it," she said quietly after a moment. Whether he wanted to leave it to her, or not, if he couldn't...who else would they send? Edgar? She wasn't sure that was the best of ideas, either.

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He took a deep breath, sickness rolling in his stomach, and shook his head again. Better him than her. "No. No, it's -- I'll do it."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

"I can go with you if you want," she offered, as a compromise. He shouldn't have to face it alone.

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He still didn't much like the idea of her having to deal with Joseph's remains -- even less so now that she suggested they go together, if only because that mean she would see what horror he visited upon his brother -- but he found himself nodding in spite of that. He wasn't strong enough to face Joseph's death again so soon and on his own; he only hoped that he'd be strong enough to stomach her reaction when she saw what he'd done to him.

"Alright."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

It needed doing, but not while the music seemed to play so gaily on. Besides, he was barely holding it together, and truth be told, she wasn't much better--numbness seeping in to calm the ache of what she should be feeling.

"In a while," she said, leaning back against the wall. "When things have quieted down."

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

"And if someone finds him before then?" Not that he truly thought they would -- Joseph had taken then far beyond the lights and sounds of the midway so no one would overhear the truth -- but there was still that fear there. He hadn't bothered trying to hide Joseph's body, leaving him out in the open amidst the tall, wild grass when he'd felt him finally still in his arms, after all. And he was sure the bloodied rock chips littering the ground around him and the gaping hole in his brother's throat would be enough to turn all eyes on him if he was discovered.

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

"I don't...." Lydia shook her head, glancing at where the lights seemed to flash over and through the window. "I don't know."

She closed her eyes, out of ideas.

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

Finally, slowly, he pulled away, getting to his feet with an air of reluctance to go stand at the window. "We were far enough out. He wanted -- " Hell, who knew what Joseph had wanted anymore. He shook his head, settling on a different approach. "I ran all the way back and took me a good ten minutes. With any luck ... "

With any luck, no one would find him.

"And if not ... we might be able to blame it on something else. A shotgun, maybe." Those bullets fragmented when they hit something, didn't they? And at point blank range, maybe it would leave the same wound as the rock he'd hurled at his brother had. Maybe no one would be able to tell the difference.

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

Lydia felt a little sick, but tried to hide it. She'd set this in motion, after all, with coming to Samuel with her tales, and she couldn't blame him for trying to defend himself, if it had come to that. But that it had come to that...

She shivered the sick feeling and imminent sob away. She had no right to them.

"I doubt anyone would question if we said that was what it was," she said quietly. They didn't have any forensic experts among them, able to tell the difference in wound patterns. "They'll want to believe the simplest explanation, the one that keeps the family together..." And they all knew about the government men who hounded their steps. And she knew the emotional pulse of the family, what they needed, wanted most.

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He nodded mutely, twisting his hands in front of him, trying to hide the fact that he still trembling. He glanced down at the, terrible lines of red still clinging to his fingers from where he had touched Joseph as he had bled out, then stuffed them in his pockets, ashamed, wondering how neither her nor Lydia had noticed the stains on his hands earlier. How she had let him touch her like that.

"I need -- I need a shower."

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

She'd barely noticed the blood specifically, too caught in the horror of his emotion, but she looked up now at him, at the movement as he stuffed his hands away. She glanced down noticing a smudge or two on her arm, but just ran her fingers over it numbly.

"Okay."

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

He didn't move right away, watching her uncomfortably as though he expected her to turn on him as Joseph had -- turn him in, pick something up off of one of her tables and try to kill him with it, something, anything. And when it seemed no attack was coming -- though he was still half-terrified that she would change her mind while he was showering and throw together a lynch mob -- he moved towards the door to the bathroom hurriedly, near sprinting. He ducked inside, locked the door behind him, and immediately turned on the water in the small shower stall, wanting to drown out the sound of her betrayal if and when it came.

He'd nearly slipped under the water when he realized he needed to take his clothes off, first.

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

Lydia didn't move until she heard the water starting. The sound of the lock had echoed in her head, in the numbness. He didn't trust her. She couldn't blame him. The person who was supposed to always have his back had just betrayed him. That she'd brought it to his attention, tried to save him...she couldn't think that it would matter right now, as betrayed as he felt.

She knew that betrayal a little too well not to understand.

Pushing shakily to her feet, she moved to his kitchen, turning on the sink to try and wash some of the blood that had transferred to her skin off as well, then put some in the kettle. Tea hardly would solve the world's problems, or even theirs, but it was all she knew to do right now to try and take care of him a bit, and the simple domesticity of the motions calmed her.

[offering-hope.livejournal.com]

In his haste, he'd forgotten to grab a change of clothes. He had no desire to put on the ones he'd been wearing again, however -- they were in worse shape than his hands had been -- and so he came out of the bathroom with nothing more than a towel around his waist. He tossed Lydia a quick look, almost stunned that she was still there, and ducked into his bedroom, fishing out a shirt and a pair of pants awkwardly, still unsettled in spite of the warmth of the shower, though no longer trembling.

He got dressed in silence, dropped the towel he'd been using in a basket he reserved solely for dirty laundry, and moved to join her in the kitchen, leaning quietly against the wall, his arms wrapped around him.

[thepainted-lady.livejournal.com]

She watched him carefully when he came out, averting her eyes to give him some privacy as he changed, and sighed a little shakily as he came back to join her. She'd made herself a cup of tea already, and she moved to his side, pressing a second one into his hands. She may have added a healthy dollop of whiskey, just to steady his nerves.

"Drink this," she ordered softly, reaching to run her fingers through his hair.